10.4.17

PRIVILEGE IS CIVILIZATION.

Just as shaming and demonizing the rich does nothing to impede their success or lift up the poor, shaming whites does nothing to uplift those in minority communities. But it does often have the opposite effect.

The real victims of the theory of white privilege are not America’s white youth. The real damage is being done to those that purveyors of the myth are purporting to help. The left has been hurting black and Latino Americans since the moment they decided they were going to help them. And perpetuating lies about inherant white privilege continues that tradition.

White shaming may harm the sensibilities of white kids, but it is doing untold damage to America’s black and Latino youth. The unintended consequences of preaching white privilege is that black and Latino youth are essentially being told to just give up. They will never be given a fair shot so why bother trying?

That may be too harsh, but there might be something else at work, and its consequences are not yet clear. Consider, by way of example, the aesthetic of the recently-concluded men's basketball tournament. The graphics and bumper music, to say nothing of the fashion statements of the players, tend to what we used to refer to as "urban contemporary." (That might still be a term of art, or perhaps there's something new.) Now, perhaps the aesthetics and production values of a more diverse country will be different from the aesthetics and production values of the old Mainstream America. No surprise there. But will that new country be more productive and more mannerly, or will intersectionality multiply the loci of conflict?